A manual for writers of research papers, theses, and dissertations, Ninth edition - Kate L. Turabian 2018

Show how complex or detailed evidence is relevant
Drafting your paper
Research and writing

By this point you may be so sure that your evidence supports your reasons that you’ll think readers can’t miss its relevance. But evidence never speaks for itself, especially not long quotations or complex sets of numbers. You must therefore speak for it: introduce it by stating what you want your readers to get out of it. For example, this passage bases a claim about Hamlet on the evidence of the following quotation:

When Hamlet comes upon his stepfather Claudius at prayer, he demonstrates cool rationality:_claim

Now might I do it [kill him] pat, now ’a is a-praying,

And now I’ll do’t. And so ’a goes to heaven,

And so am I reveng’d. . . . [Hamlet pauses to think]

[But this] villain kills my father, and for that,

I, his sole son, do this same villain send

To heaven.

Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge. (3.3)_{report of evidence}

Since that quotation doesn’t explicitly refer to Hamlet’s rationality, readers might not see how it supports the claim. So show them what is means by introducing it with a reason:

When Hamlet comes upon his stepfather Claudius at prayer, he demonstrates cool rationality._claim He impulsively wants to kill Claudius but pauses to reflect: if he kills the praying Claudius, he will send his soul to heaven, but he wants Claudius damned to hell, so he coolly decides to kill him later:_reason

Now might I do it [kill him] pat, . . . _{report of evidence}

Now we see the connection. This kind of explanatory introduction is even more important when you present data in a table or figure (see 8.3.1).